Chapter 1

Peregrine Crawford stared in horror at the box sitting on top of his delivery cart. That's a bomb.

He peered through the transparent side of the carton at the wires and electronics and cylinder-things he was pretty sure were explosives. Yep, bomb. Crap!

Perry took three big steps backward.

Is that karma for getting nosy and misusing my power again?

He'd vowed to stop spying. No more peeking inside residents' package deliveries, using his not-so-super power to turn a two-inch section of the cardboard clear as glass and give him glimpses. It'd started as a game. A creative exercise. He'd get a little look at some wrapping, a bit of fabric, or a curve of plastic, and invent a story about what that was. A writer needed fuel for their imagination, and his menial job in the luxury high rise was boooooring.

Except who was he kidding? He'd never be a real writer. And spying was bad manners. Maybe even creepy. Sometimes very much none of his business, like when he found out a middle-aged woman on the tenth floor was a sex-toy tester by spotting tentacle dildos inside a box from Product Quality Control.

Those did look awesome, though.

Still, Perry had sworn he'd keep his eyes to himself from now on. Until he'd had an odd feeling about that package sent to Justice Matthew Carpenter with no return address, and fuck, he'd been right to peek. One look, then he'd expanded the peephole to an entire transparent side, revealing a fucking bomb!

What do I do?

With a gulp, he framed the box on the cart between his raised fingers and used his power to push "back-to-normal." The section he'd turned transparent faded to its original opaque, tan cardboard. He lowered his hand. The box lurked there, looking like any ordinary package again. Like there wasn't destruction waiting inside it.

His first impulse was to call the cops. Except… what if they asked how he knew an ordinary parcel was dangerous?

Of course they'd ask. Then he'd have to confess to being a package peeping Tom. Spying was probably illegal. He'd go to jail and his mother would kill him. Or someone who wanted his stupid superpower would grab him up and draft him into the army and he'd end up in a war zone and get shot…

If this bomb doesn't kill me first.

One way or another, I'm gonna die!

Perry took two deep breaths and told his inner drama queen to fuck right off. Now was not the time to melt down into a blob of panic. Think, you dork. What do we do now?

The door of the mailroom swung open. "Perry! Get a move on," his supervisor demanded from the doorway. "People are waiting for their deliveries. Important people." Unlike you was the obvious subtext.

"Yessir." Perry said automatically, then gulped. I'm not pushing that cart. I'm not touching that damned cart.

His supervisor disappeared before Perry could ask for advice. "Mr. Brown, what's the correct protocol for delivering a bomb?" He choked a panicked laugh.

Mr. Brown would be heading outside for his lunch now, right on the dot of noon, and wouldn't be back for an hour. Not to mention, he wasn't the kind of man Perry could ask difficult questions. And definitely not someone Perry wanted to know about his snooping.

After a bunch of dithering, he eased the other packages off the bomb-laden cart and onto the backup cart while hyperventilating, not sure if he was more scared about what Mr. Brown would do if he failed to deliver the residents' precious goods, or about the bomb going off…

Fuckit. Bomb!

He scrambled back and called 9-1-1.

"Emergency services, what's your emergency?"

"Um." He felt ridiculous, but… "There's a bomb? I think?"

"Where, sir?"

"In the package." He didn't need the dispatcher's huff to tell him that was a useless answer. "I mean, in the delivery room of the Hoffward Building, 17 North Plaza. It came addressed to Justice Matthew Carpenter. I think someone wants to blow him up!"

"Is anyone injured?"

"No. It hasn't gone off. It's just sitting there."

"What kind of bomb are you seeing, sir?"

"The usual kind? With, like, explosives and things." He waved his hands as if that would help him describe it.

"Are you certain? Do you have experience with bombs?"

"No. Not yet." His voice squeaked on the last word and he backed across the mail delivery room, because it wasn't experience he ever wanted. He eased out into the main office and closed the mailroom door but the thought of that thing lurking where he couldn't see it freaked him out worse. "What do I do? Should I evacuate the building? Shit, my boss will kill me if I evacuate the building." The idea of demanding all their wealthy residents leave their Zoom calls and yoga and lunchtime screwing around made him shudder. Not my job.

"I'm dispatching an officer to you," the woman said. "Please state your name and home address."

"Uh. Perry Crawford. Peregrine." He added his rental address. "But I'm at work. Where there's a bomb!"

"Please stay calm and do not approach the suspicious package."

"No shit! I mean, yes, ma'am."

"Officer Bleakman should be with you in less than five minutes. Tell me clearly, what are you seeing?"

"The package. It's lurking. On my cart."

"‘Lurking?'"

"Sitting there."

"Describe the package. Why do you think it's a bomb?"

"Um." Admitting why would dump him in deep shit. He could answer the other question, though. "It's square, about two feet by one and a half, a brown cardboard box. The address to Justice Carpenter is printed on a white label."

"Is there a return address?"

"I didn't see one." That was part of what'd tweaked his curiosity. "I could look again?" He didn't want to.

"Do not approach the suspicious package. What explosives did you see?"

He tried to come up with a plausible answer. "Like on TV, it just looks wrong. Like dynamite? I think it's something like that."

"You think?"

"I can't see it anymore. I mean, I could see the package, but not the inside. Oh, oops, forget I said that."

"Said what?"

"About the inside. Really, all I saw was the outside." He was digging himself deeper. "You know, I think I'll go wait for the cop. Is he going to come to the front door or the service door?"

"Which one is closer to the package?"

"The service door from the alley. But it has to be opened from the inside. I'll go open it, right? Let him in? Yeah, I should do that." Finally, a good excuse to run away from the malevolent box. He shut the outer door behind him and locked it. Mr. Brown could get in, but that would keep a random person from trying to steal the box. Or anything. Crap, I left the other packages in there.

Well, he wasn't going to fetch them now. He hurried down the back corridor and then up the stairs to the delivery zone. After punching his code into the alarm panel, he pushed open the door and leaned on it, listening for a police siren. The bustle of the city, honking horns and wheezing buses and loud motorcycles, rose around him. No sirens. Come on, come on!

The dispatcher kept squawking at him, asking for the location of the delivery door. By the third time he'd said, "It's in the alley. I don't know north from south," they were both sick of each other. A police car turning in from the street and cruising up the narrow alley, lights flashing but no sirens, was a welcome relief.

Perry hung up on the dispatcher and waved. "Hey! Over here."

Or maybe not such a relief,Perry thought, as he saw the uniformed cop unfold a six-feet-and-too-many-inches wide-shouldered body out of the cruiser. Perry wasn't short— five-nine was average, thank you— but he knew when he was about to be loomed over. Still, he'd called the cops so he plastered a smile on his face and pushed the door wider. "Good to see you, officer."

The cop scowled as he approached. "You Peregrine Crawford?"

"Call me Perry. Everyone does." He held out a hand, then converted to a wave of invitation, then folded his arms because, seriously, waving? I'm a little nervous. Sue me.

The cop glowered down at him. "Officer Bleakman. You called in a bomb?"

"Yeah. Yes. In the mailroom. Which is inside. Well, of course it's inside?—"

The cop cut him off. "Lead the way."

"Right. Of course. In here." Perry led the officer in along the service hall, down the stairs rather than taking the back elevator because being trapped in a small space with Officer Bleakman felt claustrophobic, and then unlocked the office. He tiptoed across the room, eased open the mailroom door, and gestured at the package. Maybe with a touch of drama, because if anything in his life deserved drama, a bomb did. If it is a bomb. The whole idea felt so out of the realm of possibility he was beginning to doubt himself.

No transparent peeking now, though. The last thing he wanted to do was reveal his power to a police officer. Well, no, the last thing he wanted was to get blown up, but a power reveal was high on his no-way, no-howlist.

Officer Bleakman eyed the two carts sitting in the room, one piled high with boxes from Buy-All and Fast-Mail, the other bearing one, lone, malevolent box.

Except maybe the malevolence was in Perry's head, because Officer Bleakman snapped, "Which one?"

"That one." Perry pointed, pretending his finger wasn't shaking. Maybe I can just start the day over. Call in sick to work. Make this Mr. Brown's problem. Except time-reversal was a major power, not like Perry's minor ability to play with colors. Including transparent.

Transparent is a color, thank you. He'd told his power that when he was fourteen, and it'd reluctantly agreed. He was still figuring out if that was a win or a mistake. If it keeps a skyscraper from exploding over my head, I'm going with win.

Officer Bleakman eyed the package. "It looks like a box."

"Well, yeah." Perry managed not to say Duh. "The bomb is inside the box. No one's going to deliver a bomb that looks like a bomb."

"So how do you know?"

Perry racked his brains. "I picked it up and put it on the cart and it felt like a bomb."

Officer Bleakman's frown deepened. "How does a bomb feel?"

"Explosive?" He decided a white lie wouldn't hurt. "It was ticking."

"Ticking?" The huge cop tilted his head. "I don't hear anything."

"Only from close up." Perry pointed and said, "Tick, tick, tick?" Wow, can I sound any more ridiculous? "I promise, there's something really wrong with that package."

"I'll take a look at it." Officer Bleakman took a stride through the mailroom doorway.

"No!" Perry jumped forward to stop him and found himself about to be mowed down by a Godzilla's-worth of blue uniform. "Oops. Sorry. I just don't want to see you get blown up. Like, splat! All kinds of splat! Can't you, I don't know, evacuate the building and call for the bomb squad?" The cops could do the evacuating. Perry would be an innocent bystander.

"You think I call the bomb squad for every random lost package?"

"It's not random. I told you. Tick, tick, tick."

Officer Bleakman glared at him. "Move, kid."

Perry shivered in his favorite purple sneakers but didn't get out of the way, even when the glare became a hands-on-hips scowl.

After a staredown Perry only survived by keeping his gaze focused on the odd mole beside Officer Bleakman's nose, the cop ground out, "You're really serious?"

"Deathly." Perry winced. "I mean, yes, totally."

Officer Bleakman sighed. "All right, maybe I can call someone."

"Someone useful?"

"Hah. You might say so." Officer Bleakman unclipped a radio from his belt. "Hey, Dispatch, there's a small, tiny chance this thing might actually be an explosive device. Can you get me Deckard?"